The present invention is related to a method for building information databases for devices. More particularly, the present invention is related to building information databases useful for device management and administration for computer peripherals.
Computer peripherals such as printers, scanners, terminals, and other devices have become widespread. Often, these devices are connected by a communications network that allows for sharing of the devices among many users. As an example, a communications network that has a plurality of individual users may have only a few printers connected to the network which all of the users share. Printer jobs are sent by any of the users over the network to one or more of the printers for printing. In some instances, the network may span significant geographical distances so that a particular printer used may be far removed from the user.
In these shared peripheral environments, the administration and management of the shared peripherals may be difficult. It is helpful to have accurate data regarding the use and cost of the peripherals. This data allows organizations to accurately determine the cost of operating the peripheral devices. Because the peripherals may be far removed from one another and are used by a plurality of different users, however, this data is often difficult to obtain.
In addition to existing difficulties with the accounting administration of shared peripherals, other problems exist with the general management of the devices. To maximize efficiency of the shared peripherals, it is important to have general usage patterns for the devices. With these patterns, adjustments to the distribution of the devices or to the workflow to the devices can be changed. By way of example, it may be discovered that a certain networked printer has a very high workload, while another has a very low workload. Efficiency could be increased by re-directing work from the first printer to the second, or the second printer could be moved closer to the first.
Heretofore, only limited usage data has been available from the devices, and obtaining this data in meaningful quantities has sometimes required inordinate time, expense, and network bandwidth resources. There are, therefore, unresolved needs for methods for building peripheral information databases.
The present invention is directed to building an information database for a plurality of network peripherals. The method generally comprises the steps of repeatedly querying the plurality of peripherals for output count data, obtaining peripheral cost data, and building the information database using the output count data and the cost data. The information database comprises at least an operating cost for the peripheral. Preferably, the method uses a central computer to repeatedly query the plurality of peripherals over the network, to obtain the cost data, and to build the information database. Additionally, the step of building the peripheral information database preferably further comprises calculating at least a duty cycle ratio for the peripheral.
In a preferred embodiment of the method of the invention, the peripheral comprises a printer. In this embodiment, the output count data obtained from the printer comprises a page count, and the cost data comprises at least a printer fixed cost value. More preferably, a printer duty cycle is obtained, the cost data further comprises variable cost data, and additional data comprising color page count, page count by paper size, and marking agent level data are obtained through repeated querying of the printer. The preferred printer information database comprises at least a printer operating cost value reported on a per page basis and a duty cycle ratio.
Additional preferred steps of the method comprise selectively querying a designated portion of the printers at a higher frequency than a remaining portion. In particular, a first portion of the printers may be designated as high use, and a second portion designated as low use. The high use printers are then queried at a first frequency and the low use printers at a second frequency, with the first frequency being greater than the second frequency. These preferred sets of method steps advantageously decrease network traffic associated with querying the peripherals for usage data.
It will be appreciated that the method of the invention as herein described is well suited for practice by a computer. The present invention will therefore be further understood to comprise a computer program product comprising means recorded on a computer readable medium that may comprise any of an optically readable disk, a magnetic disk, or like medium, for causing a computer to perform the various steps of the method of the invention.
The above brief description sets forth rather broadly the more important features of the present disclosure so that the detailed description that follows may be better understood, and so that the present contributions to the art may be better appreciated. There are, of course, additional features of the disclosure that will be described hereinafter which will further describe the subject matter of the invention. In this respect, before explaining an embodiment of the disclosure in detail, it is to be understood that the disclosure is not limited in its application to the details of the construction and the arrangements set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The present invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for description and not limitation.